Russia's Julia Lipnitskaia and her coach Eteri Tutberidze wait for her marks in the kiss and cry zone during the Women's Figure Skating Free Program at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the Sochi Winter Olympics.
(Getty Images)

You thought things got kooky when Olympic figure skaters alleged the competition was rigged and nearly two million fans signed a petition calling for governing bodies to clean up the judging?

Well, Russian conspiracy lovers just did unhappy U.S. skater Ashley Wagner one better:

Julia Lipnitskaia's coach said that after the media forced the 15-year-old local darling to flee Sochi to practice during the Games, someone bugged the skater's locker room at a practice rink in Moscow.

The coach, via Yahoo Sports, also accused the media of stalking Lipnitskaia's family in her hometown of Nizhny Bardym, a tiny village in the Ural Mountains with a population of just 300.

So much for home-field advantage.

"We thought we had a chance here to go back to Moscow to practice at our pace," Eteri Tutberidze said. "But journalists just didn't give us a chance to be left alone.

"It was laughable because we had to evacuate this child from the practice rink. Listening devices and bugs were found installed in the locker room. And these weren't done by fans."

All that intrigue, stress and high expectations caused Lipnitskaia to skate poorly and finish fifth in the women's individual competition.

This probably comes as a shock to Wagner, the American skater who charged that Lipnitskaia, who fell during both of her routines but still placed ahead of Wagner, received favorable treatment from the judges and basked in the advantage of having the Winter Games in her home country.

Tutberidze, however, said the media coverage got so bad that Lipnitskaia had to be evacuated from the practice rink every night to escape reporters. She said Lipnitskaia was booked on several flights to keep the media from tracking her.

Lipnitskaia said the media's coverage wasn't the main reason for her disappointing performance, but ... "(They were) in Ekaterinburg with my relatives, in Moscow with me. I wish I could complain to someone about them."

She added: "I fought and fought but couldn't take it to the end. I had enough physical strength left, but at the end I lost control of my jumps. Nervousness, fatigue – everything came into play and hit me over the head."